07/22/2004: "Question of the Day: Why does the Catholic Church ignore the Gnostic Gospels that talk about Mary Magdalene?"
NOTE: If you'd like to submit a question, either post it as a comment in this entry or e-mail me at questions at thecrawfordfamily dot net.
In honor of today being the Feast Day of Mary Magdalene, I thought I'd answer a question about her. There's been a lot of "talk" about Mary Magdalene, a great Saint of the Catholic Church. Recently there have been a number of proponents of the idea that Mary Magdalene was married to Jesus. These proponents also believe that the Catholic Church has "hid" the truth from the world by not including the "Gnostic Gospels" as part of the Bible.
There are two important rebuttals to these assertions. First, the Gnostic Gospels don't actually say that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married. Those who suggest this to be the case are reading between the lines and believe it is implied in certain language used. Second, the decision of what books belong in the Bible is an important part of what Catholicism is.
I don't have a lot of data at my disposal right now on the first point, but a book I read last year called "Breaking the DaVinci Code" went through the texts that supposedly state that Mary Magdalene and Jesus were married. The text was surprisingly weak. It seems to me that to have a convincing argument in this regard you need two things: First that the texts actually say what you're hoping and second that the texts are a reliable source of data. The Gnostic Gospels can't even seem to make a compelling argument on the first point. It never comes out and says anything conclusively like "on their wedding day" or "He took her into is home" or anythink like that. It was pretty unconvincing text that I thought needed a pretty creative interpretation to argue that the two were married.
The second point of both the last two paragraphs boil down to the same thing: Can the Gnostic Gospels be taken seriously? Most Christians accept that the Bible is the word of God so naturally that we sometimes forget that it isn't really an easy conclusion. I can say right now: Bill Clinton is the anti-Christ! Does that make it true? Of course not. Just because someone wrote something down doesn't make it true. Further more, just because something is true, doesn't make it worthy of being considered The Word of God (which is what Christians consider the Bible to be). The Catholic Church had a to make a very difficult decision, one that could only be made with the guidance of the Holy Spirit, when it selected the books that would be included in the New Testament.
And don't kid yourself, that's exactly what happened. The Catholic Church, in an Ecumenical Council in 325, decided what the books of the new testament were going to be. When someone asks how we got the books of the Bible, there is only one answer: by the Authority of the Catholic Church as guided by the Holy Spirit.
This was not a case of anyone hiding anything. The Catholic Church didn't kill everyone who believed to the contrary. All it did was say: "These 29 books make up the New Testament of the Bible. They are the Word of God!" Of course that implies, as the Catholi Church intended, that the other writings were not the word of God. If I say, the DaVinci Code is wrong, am I hiding it? No, I'm just refuting it. There was no hiding on the part of the Catholic Church, just an statement of that it believed the truth to be.
And that's what this all comes down to: belief and authority. If you don't believe the Catholic Church has any authority, then you can believe whatever you want about the Bible. Before the Bible can teach anything to anyone, people must believe it to be the word of God. To do that, they must accept the authority of the group proporting it to be divinely inspired.
The same can be said for the proponents of the Gnostic Gospels. They too must convince people of their authority to promote the Gnostic Gospels as the word of God. Without that authority, they don't have much to stand on either. We don't have to believe them, just as they don't have to believe the Catholic Church.
I'm not saying these things to make a pitch for Catholicism (I'll save that pitch for another question of the day) but to put things on the right plane. In the end, it will always come down to what we believe and who we believe has authority. If we aren't willing to put our faith in one church, then we might put it in another. We must use our judgements to decide what the Truth is. That starts with deciding who to believe and who has authority to preach in the name of Christ.
You must decide. You can either accept the teachings of the Catholic Church or you can reject it. It is up to you.
